The Stars
by Takai No Hibiki
Summary: Series of oneshots. In District 3 there is a nameless group of people whose crimes go unpunished because their interests coincide with that of the Peacekeepers. They were thieves, hired hands who sometimes killed, but they were the closest thing to a family Pyro had. When one of them is sent to the Games, the rest are forced to come to terms with the nature of their job.
1. Introduction

**The Stars**

**Title: **Introduction

**Characters: **Pyro, Cuan, Syarnark, Sche, Matiy, Faiz, Penka, Haakon

**Word Count: **766

**Warnings:** None, except for mild violence. The timeline becomes a bit hazy after this chapter.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes: **Just a series of one-shots based on the characters from District 3 that I created for my other story, Song of the Dying. I'm following a list of 100 Themes that I found on deviantart. Also, I'm still working on Song of the Dying - this is just an extra.

* * *

_In a quiet corner of District 3, the small boy first asked him, "People say the stars are real. Is that true?"_

_And he responded, "Scientifically, yes. Although it is impossible to see through the smog in this District, we can assume that they are indeed visible in the others and are not simply holograms produced by the Capitol."_

_And the boy, thin and scruffy like the other miscreants of his age, stared up at the man with wide green eyes and asked to hear more._

**001: Introduction**

Meeting the group was nothing like he expected.

These people were infamous in District 3 to the point of legend. No one was quite sure if they even existed at all or if they were simply the villains in a tale spun to keep children off the streets at night. They had many names, none consistent, and yet most could recognize the stories of their deeds in an instant.

Seeing them now, they were disappointingly plain people, little more than average citizens. There was nothing flashy or grandiose about any of them. Of course he understood that this was a necessary precaution, but it still conflicted with that imposing, larger-than-life image he had subconsciously built up in his mind.

They really did have no name, no identity, and yet when he gazed out upon the lot of them scattered across heaps of rubble and debris in the junkyard, he saw a sense of _togetherness _surrounding the six that had nothing to do with familial ties. Each belonged to his or her spot, from the tall man in the distance to the absentminded girl poking through a tattered newspaper to the child hardly any older than he.

He wondered (and not for the last time) how such drastically different people could exist and fit together so perfectly, the furthest thing from a family and yet somehow more connected than any he had ever known.

The tall man next to him, the one with an angel's devastatingly deceitful face and a voice that never requested or commanded, clasped one large hand over his shoulder. He shrugged off the touch as soon as he felt it, perhaps even before then, and shot him a glare for his audacity.

"This is Pyro, our newest addition," the man introduced him. "Say hello."

Everyone looked up.

And just like that, they accepted him.

Without qualm or hesitation they simply nodded or grunted and returned to whatever activities they had been engaged in before the interruption. No one questioned why he had chosen Pyro, what he could contribute to their group, nothing. They ignored him and continued to go about their business.

All except for the brunet about his age, that was.

The boy - taller than Pyro but then again most of his peers were - picked his way through the trash heaps with the practiced ease and fluidity of one who had never known solid ground before. He landed before the smaller blond with a sweet, friendly smile on his pale lips and a spark in his eyes that had nothing to do with the light of dawn over District 3.

Pyro took a quick step back, only to run into a large hand pressed against his back. Glancing up, he was met with another smiling face and was reminded of the deception this man was capable of once more.

"I'm Syarnark," the brunet said, extending an eager hand. "Nice to meet you."

He nodded.

"I'll introduce you to the rest, c'mon."

Before Pyro had a chance to protest, the older boy had seized him by the hand and taken off with him in tow, chattering like the never ending morse code of the factory workers.

He pointed out the tall man in the back and the disgruntled and sharp woman sitting on a dilapidated bench. There was the air-headed girl, a short man in dark garb lingering in the shadow of a battered doorway, and the blonde woman who was walking up to speak with the leader.

It was too much information all at once. Syarnark's incessant, feverish chatter continued to unravel story after story with no regard for Pyro's protests.

"Let me go," he implored with a growl that he tried in vain to suppress. No response, just another tangent regarding computers, of all things. He wondered how the boy even knew so much about the devices, given that only adults were allowed to use computers and solely for their work in the factories.

He yanked, growing more annoyed by the second, and caught the leader's dark eyed gaze filled with an almost childish amusement at his predicament.

Pyro, on the other hand, was far from amused.

He lunged forward with a snarl, catching the other boy off guard in a momentary lapse of balance, and _bit_.

Everyone stopped to stare at the two boys, one yelping and wincing in pain as he clutched his bleeding arm. The other was skittering backwards in a wary, arched stance with defiance glaring out from his eyes, and they had all of their answers without having to ask a single question.


	2. Love

**The Stars**

**Title: **Love

**Characters: **Pyro, Cuan

**Word Count: **452

**Warnings:** Dubious teaching methods, dubious wording left up to interpretation

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes: **I didn't mean for it to sound sexual, I swear. But interpret it as you will. This probably takes place after Introduction.

* * *

**002: Love**

Pyro loved his family, loved them with every fibre of his being, loved them until he was sure his heart would someday give from the sheer immensity of it.

It was in his mother's honeyed smile and wrinkled, tired green eyes that were just one shade darker than his own. It was in her fingers, worn from years in the factory working with small machinery, and in the fabrics that she once draped over him in the cold of the winter nights.

It was his father's greying hair and strong posture, the solid wall that always traveled and surveyed the path before him, the back that guided him.

And in his sister it was her bright voice, forever in awe and wonder at the world around her however bleak the sleet grey buildings of District 3 were or how she trembled in the Reaping among her closest friends.

It was in the memories he had of them as a family in their tiny apartment, sitting around a battered table and a dingy lightbulb and laughing and clutching each other in their hysterics.

Pyro thought he knew what true, pure love was until Cuan graciously stole that from him one day.

He'd argued until he choked on dust and dirt particles in the musty place where they had decided to stay until morning.

Cuan, with his manipulative nature and charming snake's smile, did not know what love was.

Syarnark, with his endless supply of smiles and optimism in the face of refuse and the stench of death, did not know what love was.

Matiy, with her absentminded pondering and childlike view of the world, did not know what love was.

He went on and on, a dull flame he long thought dead reignited by Cuan's small, offhand comment.

The memories of his family burned in his eyes, burned his throat as he unburied their smiles and their laughter and their hugs, all of which had been consumed by the thick and endless smog over District 3.

Cuan listened to his rant patiently, until he ran out of breath and out of emotion.

He handed him a worn paring knife with dirt pressed into the crevices of the handle, gave him his first bitter taste of blood, and taught him a different kind of love.

And when he asked the man later, in the dark of the night when even people like them were within the reaches of slumber, whether or nor he believed love even existed, Cuan replied:

"I do not ask for your love, but your loyalty, and the strength that comes of it. But if love will grant you that strength, then who am I to tell you what to believe?"


	3. Light

**The Stars**

**Title: **Light

**Characters: **Syarnark, Sche, mentions of the others

**Word Count: **670

**Warnings:** Near death situations

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes: **No Pyro this time. Not really satisfied with this one but I can never think of anything for the prompt "light".

* * *

**003: Light**

District 3 was a foggy, grey, and dank place to live. The District's escort complained every year about the smog that never seemed to lift even with the machines in the factory silent and still. The residue made the air heavy and cloying, suffocating to outsiders unaccustomed to it.

The smog extended into the sky, creating an impenetrable grey blanket that even the sun could barely pierce. On the clearest of nights, they could see a faint silver shimmer from the moon.

The further out you traveled from the blocks of factories and the closer you got to the junkyard, the less intense the smog. The grit still managed to cling to the air, dampening the light of the sun, regardless.

It was a well known fact that there was never a truly clear day in District 3. The day of his first Reaping was the same.

All the others had been older, a few years past their eighteen birthdays, and they no longer had to worry about anything except for showing up to the Reaping on time. They placed a few bets amongst the crowd, looking to make something out of an unproductive few hours.

Syarnark, for the first time in nearly two years, was alone.

They almost always operated in pairs or groups of three, usually with a comfortable level of backup, but this was the first time that Syarnark no longer had any of them watching out for him.

To say that he was exceedingly nervous was a lie. Sche had given him an encouraging talk about the matter earlier, but he wasn't as concerned as his peers.

Before Cuan and Penka caught him, there had been a time when the orphanage had little food and its residents were left to scrounge up whatever they could find from the trash heaps. It was a harsh, barren winter, the paved ground of District 3 unforgivingly cold.

A misstep and he found himself laying on a copse of debris, the ground where he'd just been standing far above his head, and the remains of what had once been a table beneath him soaked in blood.

It had been a throbbing pain, like the constant presence of hunger gnawing at his stomach. When he tried to push himself up his limbs gave in and all he could do was lay there, trembling and immobile.

He counted out the seconds in his head, little puffs of white breath escaping his lips as he concentrated solely on breathing. It had been a long time since he'd slipped up that badly, he mused with a wet chuckle.

His friends were all off in a different area of the junkyard and it was too dangerous to just start shouting for help in the middle of it all.

Somehow he'd found the strength to pull himself up and crawl back to the orphanage where the overworked nurse hastily knitted him back together, shoving him on a cot in the hopes that he would wake in the morning.

Even though Syarnark shrugged it off the next day, for some brief and indefinable moment he knew exactly what had transpired, at how close to death he had been. And he'd danced along that same line before, and he would continue to do so until the real end of his life, and so when the Reaping came along he shook off the last vestiges of whatever worries he might have had.

"If you're not strong enough to deal with it, don't bother coming back at all," Sche had told him the day before.

District 3's escort stepped up to the stage, all bright colors and hues that were shocking to the eye, almost like the vivid pixels of a computer screen. It was noon, easily the brightest time of the day, and the sun was shining through the smog.

Syarnark turned his head up at it and smiled. Then he turned back to the stage and schooled his face into an expressionless mask to await the decision.


	4. Dark

**The Stars**

**Title: **Dark

**Characters: **Pyro, Cuan

**Word Count: **738

**Warnings:** Cuan is a creep.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** I tend to picture Districts with factories as places with factories, apartment buildings, houses and shops, and the further out you get the more dilapidated the buildings. Not sure when this takes place - could be shortly after Introduction or a few years down the line.

* * *

**004: Dark**

Cuan's eyes were a dark, charcoal grey, a smoky color that by no means should have been capable of the deception that he held as his most trusted confidant.

Many of District 3's inhabitants were dark eyed or dark haired, their skin a universally pale and ashen hue from lack of sunlight and exposure. Although Cuan looked no different from the average man walking around in town, Pyro sometimes felt a sense of unease staring at him.

That scrutinizing gaze was fixed on him now, even through the sharp darkness of the night. Pyro could sense more than see the man sitting on a low, moth bitten couch only a few feet away.

With a soft shiver he settled down amongst the well worn blankets adorning his makeshift bed, tugging the edge to cover his mouth and nose. Nearly an entire wall of the room they were in had been surrendered to time, but it was remarkably the most stable of all the ones they had checked.

The cold was bitter, but they hadn't been able to have the luxury of a fire for quite some time now. Fires attracted too much attention, but it would have been nice to be warm.

He closed his eyes for a moment, but was too cold to fall asleep easily. Groaning in frustration, he pushed the blankets down enough for him to talk unobstructed. Cuan was still staring at him.

"Why are people afraid of the dark?"

"Do you really think people are afraid of the absence of light?"

Pyro threw a sharp glare in Cuan's direction, knowing that the inscrutable man would somehow sense it through the distance between them.

He gave the idea some thought, considering every word that Cuan had spoken. He was a man who wasted little on frivolities, even in his speech, and despite his infuriatingly calm and whimsical persona, Pyro found that he could trust every word to mean _something_ even when the man was lying.

"People aren't afraid of the dark…" he pondered. "Then...they are just afraid of being unable to see?"

"Perhaps it is difficult for you to comprehend, because you yourself have no fears."

"No fears?" he echoed with a frown. "I wouldn't say that."

"Do you trust me?" Cuan suddenly spoke. Pyro sputtered, withdrawing as if the man himself was directly in front of him.

"What're you talking about?"

"Do you trust me?" Cuan said persistently.

"Well, yes, I suppose so," he grudgingly replied. In a weird, twisted, somewhat perplexing way.

"You are unable to see me because it is dark, and yet you say that you can trust in me not to hurt you and to keep watch and ensure that no harm comes to you as you sleep."

Pyro flushed at the insinuation - the notion that he was so vulnerable that he needed Cuan for any of that at all. He said nothing, though, in favor of hearing what the man had to say about the topic.

"And thus, you have no fear of the dark."

Pyro shot upright, tossing the blankets aside as he snapped with a mounting growl, "That's it?"

"That's it, simple, really," Cuan said. Pyro could sense (again, sense more than feel or see) him stand and walk over to settle down next to him. Now he could see a vague form take shape, a man cloaked in dark clothes in the shadows.

Cuan pushed him back down with a tap, urging him to try and sleep as he settled against the wall where he was more comfortable. Even if someone were to sneak into the room, Cuan would wake immediately - in that sense Pyro did place trust in him, but particularly in his instincts.

"I am not afraid because I know that you are here," he said aloud.

"Well, do you believe in monsters?" Cuan said lightly, in the sort of mockingly innocent tone that Pyro detested.

"No," he replied sharply. "They don't exist. Unless you count the mutts, but they're just mutated animals. And they don't exist in the Districts."

"Well, there you have it. For you, there is no unknown - you know exactly what the dark contains. And people, believe it or not, are afraid of their own imaginations."

"Afraid of what the darkness might bring…?" Pyro muttered, settling into his makeshift bed once more with a quiet yawn. "I used to be afraid, I think, a long time ago."


	5. Seeking Solace

**The Stars**

**Title: **Seeking Solace

**Characters: **Pyro, Syarnark, Cuan

**Word Count: **1,035

**Warnings:** Off-screen violence, death, disturbing amounts of apathy

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** This turned out a bit longer than I intended, but it was a powerful prompt. In case you were wondering, the Peacekeepers tend to ignore their actions (somewhat like how the ones in 12 ignored Katniss and Gale's hunting, even buying from them), so long as they aren't too flashy. They also do some jobs for richer members of the district- dirty jobs like the ones in this chapter. As for why they kill without sympathy? Well, you'll just have to read on. It's something Pyro doesn't really understand, himself.

* * *

**005: Seeking Solace**

Sometimes Pyro honestly forgot that they were all human beings here.

It sounded silly to admit, even in his head, but the more he thought about it the more the notion began to make sense. _Before_ them it was something he only took for granted, something he never even had to consider.

When he first joined the group it had been painfully clear to the naked eye that Pyro was the anomaly, the glaringly obvious greenhorn in the midst of more seasoned comrades. It had been a source of shame to him, a motivation to improve and earn the respect of the others, but no matter how hard he struggled their inherent differences were still apparent.

The first time Cuan allowed him to participate in more than just minor thefts and recon jobs he bitterly recalled having to run off halfway through. The proceedings had left him violently nauseous, the sickly sweet scent of flesh and blood clinging to his senses even after he was a block away.

Bile rose to the back of his throat and he fought to keep it down, mindful that leaving behind any evidence was dangerous and pushed the limits of what they were and were not allowed to get away with in their criminal pursuits.

But he didn't think that the Capitol's Peacekeepers would endorse _this._

Evidently, they did, because Cuan was a cautious man who rarely took risks that didn't benefit the group in some way. He was well aware of their limitations and the boundaries that they couldn't cross without attracting attention.

Apparently murder didn't make it on that list.

Someone approached him from behind. Judging by the light taps against the concrete he assumed that it was Syarnark, whose footsteps were as airy as his smiles.

"I know," Pyro laughed bitterly, pushing himself to his feet with effort. His legs felt boneless, as if he'd run a mile or two. "I know, travel in groups of two or more, never alone. I know."

"Are you - no, you're not okay," Syarnark said. For once Pyro couldn't hear a smile in his voice. The other boy stepped up to his side and carefully directed him down a side alley, away from the scene of their crime. As they walked he chattered, if in a more guarded tone than normal.

Pyro wasn't really listening. He never did, not to the useless things Syarnark had to say. He had a feeling that no one really paid the boy any attention when he rambled like this, and at one point he'd almost felt bad for him.

Not anymore, he thought darkly. For more than one reason.

"How can you do it?"

"Hm?"

"How…how can you do it? Kill people." Pyro spat the last words out as if they were a curse, a plague. "They've never done anything to you."

Syarnark shrugged. "It's a job. Like stealing. You had a problem with that at first too, right?"

"It's different." Pyro gritted his teeth, trying to keep his anger in control. Cuan had scolded him numerous times before, berating him for his bad habit of flying off the handle and letting his anger control his actions. It was hard, though.

"Look, I don't know. You want to go get something good to eat? We have some extra money and-"

"No."

"But-"

"I said no."

"Alright…"

Pyro watched Syarnark turn away with a pout, the closest to a frown the other boy ever got. Maybe he felt a bit guilty for turning him down so crudely, but his stomach recoiled at the thought of paying for a decent meal with the money they earned from _murdering_ someone.

That was probably the first time Pyro realized how much of a mockery of human beings they all were. It was probably because of the incident that he slowly began to forget that they indeed were humans who had emotions and fears and happy memories like the rest of the world.

And for the life of him he couldn't understand it.

He was accustomed to the Capitol's cruelty and vindictive control over the Districts. They were cruel because they wished for power and relished in subjugating those weaker than them.

He imagined the perplexed look on Syarnark's face when he asked that question was the same look that anyone from the Capitol might wear if asked whether or not they considered the Games murder.

And he didn't know which scared him more.

Pyro, of course, couldn't avoid such missions forever if he were to find his own place within the group. He proved useful in other ways, hardened his heart for the times when murder was unavoidable, and crept off on his own after all was said and done to wrestle with the fury and guilt hammering at his chest.

In those times he found it incredibly hard to breathe, as if the smog over District 3 was about to smother him to death. There was nowhere for him to run, no place where he could go except back to his comrades, but he couldn't bear to return to see their laughing, carefree faces as they washed their hands of the blood of their victims.

Sometimes he wished Cuan had never recruited him.

In those moments he could cry and scream as much as he wanted, but his pride prevented him from doing more than punching a few walls until his knuckles bled.

Cuan always found him shortly after, a frustrated ball of roiling emotions, none of which he could name and all of which he felt as strongly as a punch in the gut.

And Cuan, patient and calm, pulled him into a tight embrace in a shadowed corner of wherever they were, and let him cry and rage and hate all he wanted, until he was too tired to care.

He'd clutch at the older man, half pushing him away and half pulling him closer, seeking solace in another human being who intrinsically couldn't understand anything that Pyro was going through.

Cuan didn't understand him, but he dealt with the verbal abuse and few fists that went flying in solemnity, and Pyro could almost pretend that he was truly offering his condolences.


	6. Break Away

**The Stars**

**Title: **Break Away

**Characters: **Pyro, Cuan, Matiy

**Word Count: **831

**Warnings:** Language, mentions of criminal acts

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Couldn't really think of anything for "break away" so there you go.

* * *

**006: Break Away**

They pretended to be a lot of things.

Disguises were always on the agenda, no matter how small or inconsequential the job seemed. It could be something minor like a pair of worn glasses or a different hairstyle, but Cuan was very particular about their need for disguises.

Likewise, their roles fluctuated from job to job. Sometimes Pyro and Cuan would pretend to be brothers (with different mothers, perhaps), other times cousins or neighbors. If they were involved in a rather large job they might rope the others into the "story" as well.

The older Pyro got, however, the harder it was becoming to think of something new. They'd done the brothers and cousins act way too many times before and Cuan was getting antsy.

"If it weren't for that hair of yours…" Cuan muttered fervently, pacing back and forth along the dusty ground. He eyed Pyro's blond hair seemingly in disdain.

"Hey, shut it!" Pyro snarled, lunging forward threateningly. Not that he would do anything. He'd grown out of that habit of biting people he was displeased with long ago, thank you very much.

Cuan leveled him with a critical glare.

"We need to think of something different. Your eyebrows are also blond and we've come to the conclusion that nothing can change them without looking odd, so wigs are out of the question."

"Well I'm _terribly_ sorry for that," he shot back, leaning against a stiff and crumbling pillar. It looked like this place had once been a factory, but it had long since been looted and was slated for demolition.

Cuan ignored his cheeky remarks, more than accustomed to his spitfire personality by now. In the years since he recruited Pyro, the two were rarely separated except for select jobs. Pyro simply couldn't get along with many of the others without starting a fight or argument, which was definitely not ideal when they were working.

Well, he argued with Cuan plenty, but the older man was better equipped with the patience to handle him in the long term.

"This next job is fairly important. It's for the mayor, you see…"

"Again? He's a greedy bast-"

"Yes, yes, don't insult the client unless he becomes a hit," Cuan said with a careless dismissal of his hand. Pyro frowned, crossing his arms over his chest.

"So what's the job? If it's _another_ assassination then you can-"

"We need you this time." Cuan interrupted him so abruptly that Pyro had to stop and blink to make sure that he'd heard the man correctly. Cuan's eyes held none of his usual mirth, the infuriatingly smug air about him that set Pyro's nerves aflame.

"Really now," he said, eyes narrowed. "So you want to be brothers or cousins or what this time?"

Cuan shook his head. "You and Matiy."

"Matiy?" Pyro echoed, truly perplexed. He didn't often work with the others on important jobs, much less Matiy - she was often paired off with Sche or Syarnark. He didn't mind the absentminded girl's company, but Cuan was oddly out of character. He normally liked keeping an eye on Pyro, if just to make sure he didn't screw anything up.

Cuan suddenly stopped pacing and swerved sharply towards Pyro, snatching him up by the arm and dragging him off with a dogged, silent determination that irked him to no end.

"Hey, where the hell are we going?" he said angrily, trying in vain to break away from the man's iron grip. Geez, he really hated it when Cuan was like this - not telling him a thing until the act was done and over with.

He struggled the whole way into town, quieting only when Cuan had directed them inside a clothing store, more likely than not to purchase whatever disguise they were assuming this time.

Pyro stood aside and fumed as the older man delved into the racks and shelves, searching for something. He wouldn't tell Pyro no matter how insistent he was, so it was better to just sit back and wait for the result of Cuan's search.

It took ten long minutes for him to return holding a stack of clothes, _none _of which Pyro was feeling particularly keen on.

Especially seeing as they were all for _girls._

"Which do you think Matiy would like?" Cuan asked, his voice still flat and serious. It was a low timbre, a pleasant tone, but Pyro had been long enough to roll his eyes at the man even though the seamstress behind them was peering at the handsome man unobtrusively.

"Why can't Matiy buy her own clothes?" Pyro shot back.

"It's a gift," he said quickly, almost too quickly. Pyro's narrowed eyes glared at him fiercely.

What was that an excuse for? He didn't know.

"The green one. Nothing too flashy or bright. She won't care, though. Try long sleeves," Pyro grudgingly obliged. Cuan paused for a moment, nodded, and disappeared into the shelves once again.

Pyro just sunk back against the wall with a groan.

* * *

Is Cuan going to make Pyro crossdress? We may never know...he would be young enough to pull it off if he didn't speak much.


	7. Heaven

**The Stars**

**Title: **Heaven

**Characters: **Pyro, Syarnark, mentions of the others

**Word Count: **324

**Warnings:** Atheism, discussion of religion related topics of heaven and hell

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Very short, just a drabble probably. Again, the timeline skips between chapters.

* * *

**007: Heaven**

Pyro didn't believe in heaven.

Syarnark didn't, either.

Life might have been easier, nicer even, if they did believe in such a peaceful, benevolent place. It was where the good and the faithful went to spend their eternities in a restful sleep.

Pyro believed in hell.

Syarnark didn't believe in hell, either.

Even if he didn't believe in the lofty heavens, Pyro knew that hell existed. Not that he'd ever seen the place for himself or had known anyone who did. Not at all.

But hell had to exist, even if it was hell on earth and others called it karma or justice or whatever. Pyro knew what hell was because he was living it every day and he hoped that someday, Cuan and Syarnark and even Sche or Penka would join him.

He didn't feel guilty thinking such thoughts. Cuan had even listened to him rant about it, had calmly discussed with him the notions of heaven and hell.

There were people like Syarnark, who didn't believe in an afterlife, and there were people who relished in the knowledge that a sin free life would end in heaven.

Maybe Pyro was just being contrary. Maybe he didn't believe in heaven because of what he'd done, because of who he kept as company.

When his parents had died and he'd buried them in the ground, he'd cried his tears of sorrow and turned around, never to look back again. They were dead, soon to decay in the earth, and he didn't believe in heaven then, either.

Syarnark went into the Games and suddenly, Pyro found himself wishing that the older boy had been right and that there was no afterlife, no heaven or hell, even though he knew that hell had to exist.

He didn't quite know what to believe anymore.

Because everyone who sinned - everyone who committed murder no matter the age - had to go to hell and be punished for their crimes.


	8. Innocence

**The Stars**

**Title: **Innocence

**Characters: **Cuan, mentions everyone else

**Word Count: **801

**Warnings:** None

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** All about Pyro, I know. But at least some of the mystery is unraveling (and yes there is a coherent plot in this series of oneshots).

* * *

**007: Innocence**

The boy had a foul mouth and an equally foul and irate temper.

He was incredibly disrespectful towards those he was disgusted with and a polite brat to those he liked. Unlike most kids his age, he valued formalities over casual introductions and came to rational conclusions about difficult or unfamiliar subjects.

It was his curiosity that really attracted Cuan's attention, however. Most kids his age, and indeed most of the people in their District, could care less for scholarly activities. They were concerned about living, surviving, and struggling through life.

Cuan had seen the boy around long before he thought about recruiting him. He'd seen the boy at his first Reaping, a terrifying time (though he could hardly remember his own), but one that the boy faced with a steely glare and just the barest hint of nervous energy.

It was a truly honest display of emotions. Cuan had to congratulate him for that at least.

He wouldn't go as far as saying that the boy was completely innocent even back then when they first met, before he had been dragged down to their "level" as he put it. Just watching him from afar proved to Cuan that he wasn't a normal kid.

Of course, Cuan wasn't the type to attribute that "loss of innocence" to the death of the kid's family. Certainly, that had turned him bitter and angry at the world, but he couldn't consider it a major factor of that loss of childhood.

No, even before the kid's family died he had probably possessed a similar personality to the one he now expressed in volatile outbursts and passionate rants.

He was the type to hold true to his beliefs even if it started raining fire and the world was torn asunder. When they killed, he berated and scorned them, cursed their very existence (and his own).

And when they were at peace, quietly resting in the corner of some dilapidated building or in the house that was licensed under Penka's name but that they all frequented, he indulged in solemn talks about stories and history and science.

Cuan never believed for a moment that the boy didn't know at least an inkling of the cruel, ugly truth when they first met all those years ago. Those wide, honest green eyes that had gazed upon him and asked him in innocent curiosity whether or not the starts actually existed had to have known the truth.

And yet, when he asked, "If you hate killing so much, why did you join us?", the boy would reply, "Because I had no choice in the matter."

He was an enigma, yet at the same time so very transparent with his emotions. His anger shone passionately like the hot coals in a fireplace, the embers that sparked and crackled even in their dying breaths.

Sometimes his stubbornness knew no bounds, his face of calm flying into one of absolute, unadulterated rage from one moment to the next.

Sometimes he would grown solemn and quiet, eyes unreadable, and he would commit to killing any target Cuan specified with coldblooded dignity.

And then afterwards he would scream and punch the wall until it or his fist gave out, but sometimes he did nothing at all, sometimes he was as carefree about the subject as any of them.

He got along with most of the others now, including Syarnark who had painstakingly weaved his way into the other boy's life until he was able to laugh and smile with the lot of them.

"It's like we're a family," he mused lightly one day, much to everyone's disdain and disapproval.

"What?!" Haakon screeched, swinging a dented metal rod at the boy without reserve. The blond danced out of the way with a scowl.

"I refuse to be any part of this," Sche demanded.

"Family? But there's too many of us…" Matiy said in confusion.

"Family units used to be quite large," Syarnark tried to explain uselessly. "Not just parents and siblings."

"We look nothing alike, so it wouldn't work," said Penka.

"Pyro, go die," Faiz intoned in a deadpan, absolutely serious voice.

"Why don't _you_ go die in a ditch?" the boy snapped back.

He never spoke about the _real _family he no longer had, but everything about him seemed so genuine and so bright that Cuan would find it hard to believe that he was anything different even when they were alive.

He was the youngest of them, surely the most argumentative at times, and was infuriatingly set in his morals. And yet he got along with everyone else just fine. He'd joined them knowing about their deeds.

Cuan stared at him sometimes and thought that the little boy he had taken in all those years ago really had not been so innocent at all.


	9. Drive

**The Stars**

**Title: **Drive

**Characters: **Syarnark, Cuan, Pyro, mentions of everyone else

**Word Count: **628

**Warnings:** Assassinations and computer hacking

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** I don't think they have cars/use them as often as we do so this was the best I could think of.

* * *

**009: Drive**

The screen came to life in a burst of violent color, instantly washing the immediate area in an eerie blue glow.

Syarnark bent over the keys with a grin as his eyes scanned the complex codes and files that were appearing one after another. His fingers moved rapidly, hardly pausing even for a second as he shifted through the depths of the computer.

Aside from Cuan, Syarnark was the only other member who bothered to devote any substantial amount of time to electronics and technology. It sounded weird coming from a group of people in District 3, but most of them couldn't be bothered with learning more than just the basics.

Syarnark had always loved computers, though. Sche called him a freak for his obsession, for how scarily efficient he was at cracking most codes and sneaking into any computer's interface without leaving a single track, but it was a bloody _useful _skill.

"You really understand all that?" Pyro asked uncertainly over his shoulder, squinting at the screen dubiously. "Looks like a bunch of nothing."

"Oh, but this is _everything_. I can find out anything that's ever went through this computer just from this," Syarnark said with a widening smile as he turned around and held out his hand. "Disk, please."

Pyro handed over a flat, shiny silver disk from the bag over his shoulder.

"Can you hack the Capitol's computers?" he asked.

Syarnark scoffed as he searched for the disk drive. "No, of course not, at least not without access to another Capitol computer to work from. Then, maybe. Too risky though."

He heard Pyro shuffle away, most likely nodding. The boy didn't move far, though. Syarnark knew that he found things like this intriguing - perhaps not something he would take up as a hobby like Syarnark, but intriguing nonetheless.

Download started, Syarnark sat back to watch the information process. There were other ways to obtain the same information, but the computers didn't lie like human beings did. It was much cleaner and quieter, too, a method Pyro preferred.

He couldn't really understand that boy sometimes. Even though Syarnark liked technology, sometimes it was fun to just enjoy the _chase_, the exhilaration that coursed through one's veins while on the run from committing a violently brilliant act.

And besides, the "messy" jobs paid more. Not that they truly needed the money, he supposed.

Pyro once asked him what drove them to commit such acts, but Syarnark had been unable to give him a satisfactory answer.

He really didn't know. All he could say was, "We do it because we feel like it and because we can."

Syarnark had never asked that question before. He could remember the first time he was allowed to accompany the rest on one of their assassination jobs, right after the Reaping when he was thirteen.

"A bit disrespectful," Cuan admitted, "but not that it concerns us."

Syarnark had gone along and watched from afar, finding himself entranced and awed by the simple, effortless way they killed.

Death, as far as he knew up until then, was a messy and undignified thing. He'd seen it plenty of times during the Games, but none killed with the ease and finesse that these people before him possessed.

Syarnark wasn't obsessed with death or killing. Cuan called it flashy, a deed committed to make a point and while some of them truly did enjoy it, Syarnark was not one of them.

He liked computers, technology, fiddling with spare parts they found in the junkyard and creating something out of nothing.

Sometimes though, it was necessary to get a bit dirty.

"Make sure no one sees us leave," he told Pyro as he retrieved the disk from the drive. "If they do, we'll have to kill them."


	10. Breath Again

**The Stars**

**Title: **Breath Again

**Characters: **Syarnark, Cuan, Pyro, Faiz, mentions of everyone else

**Word Count: **715

**Warnings:** Death/murder, the Games

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Now you know who went into the Games. And we get some more plot while we're at it!

* * *

**010: Breathe Again**

Tracking was an arduous task requiring both patience and restraint, a delicate balance between life and death for all involved.

It wasn't simply a matter of staying out of sight and keeping to utter silence. There were dozens of other factors that had to be considered when tracking one's prey.

Because it was so easy to turn the tables and become the hunted instead.

Syarnark had never before set foot in any type of woods or grassland in his entire life. District 3 was a landscape of grey stonework and treacherous trash heaps, the only source of plant life the weeds that snuck through the concrete.

This terrain was completely unfamiliar, a place of towering trees hosting animals he had only ever heard about in stories.

But the concept was the same.

Track the target, wait for an opportunity, and carry out the mission as swiftly and safely as possible. It was meaningless to come out of a conflict dead or worse, so tracking your target without preparation was just as bad as not tracking him at all.

His eyes glazed over as he waited, listening to the array of strange sounds all around him as he crouched low in the underbrush, the target within sight yet far enough away to fall into a false sense of security.

Usually he'd have someone with him - Matiy, perhaps, or Pyro if Cuan was feeling particularly spiteful that day. Anyone at his back would have given him that extra layer of confidence instead of straining his senses to keep a watch out for anyone who might be tracking _him._

But he didn't have any allies here.

It was just him and the weapons he managed to snatch up at the beginning of the Games or steal as he went along.

The Capitol-grade dagger at his side was surprisingly light, a fine piece of metal unlike what they normally scrounged up in the junkyard. Having a weapon, particularly one he was familiar with, did make him feel better about this "game".

Syarnark lifted his head a few inches off the ground, eying his target as she settled down into a concealed groove between two twisted trees.

He'd spent an uncomfortable twelve hours tracking the girl from District 6 this far, away from the Cornucopia and the other tributes. Theoretically, he could have struck at any time - but then the others would have no doubt heard the commotion.

Fingering the dagger with its fine, curved handle, he inhaled a small and quiet breath that barely stirred the leaves before him, and descended.

Quickly, swiftly, leave no trace of your presence behind - that was how they operated.

Most of the time their targets never even noticed them, much less had a chance to strike back. This time was no different. The girl was exhausted and had no reason to believe that someone had been able to track her this far into the forest when there had been other tributes to chase.

It was the first strike that was the most vital. Even Pyro never faltered, however much he complained about the job beforehand. It was Faiz who was the best at it, though.

Syarnark's smile didn't fade as he slipped through the trees, drew the dagger from its sheath, and sliced the girl's throat open in one smooth movement.

The resulting blood splatter stained the edges of his sleeves as he darted away from the girl, struggling and gurgling on the ground as she tried to desperately staunch the blood flow.

He couldn't help but laugh, thinking about how the others would call his skills unpolished. Faiz, certainly, would tease him for getting blood on him and for the mess he'd left behind. Sche would berate him for taking so much time stalking the girl in the first place.

Only Pyro would glower at him, turn away and refuse to speak to him for an entire day or week afterwards.

The smile faded from his lips, but it was a minuscule change in his expression.

It sucked working back-to-back like this. He'd had hardly any rest since the Games began.

He couldn't wait until he could breath easily again. Even though he wouldn't be able to see everyone else again even if he got out of here alive.


	11. Memory

**The Stars**

**Title: **Memory

**Characters: **Full cast, mentions of Syarnark

**Word Count: **529

**Warnings:** Talking about the Games

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Obviously happens sometime during the Games, more towards the beginning of them. And we get a new member, Kallisto! Kallisto is 12, not the youngest to ever join them, but younger than Pyro when he joined at 13. Syarnark was the youngest, joining at around 10 years old.

* * *

**011: Memory**

"Where's your family?"

"Family…?"

The child's quiet voice reached across the room, dark eyes staring straight ahead without focusing on anyone in particular. It was as if the others did not exist in his eyes at all.

"Do they know you're here?" Pyro urged.

The child - Cuan said it was a boy although it was hard to tell - fell utterly silent. No part of him gave away any hint of emotion, not his eyes, not his posture. He simply continued staring at the opposite wall, for all intents and purposes a life sized doll.

"Don't you remember them at all?"

The silent boy blinked once.

"Give it up," Sche deadpanned.

"The past doesn't matter," Matiy said simply, tilting her head to the side as if confused that Pyro wanted to inquire about it at all. "No one talks about it."

"Not many here have any memory of their families, unlike you," Penka pointed out.

Pyro frowned and crossed his arms, foot tapping incessantly at the ground. "Just because we don't talk about it doesn't mean it has no meaning. Besides, he's just a kid. And he came out of nowhere."

"So did you," Haakon shot back bitingly, glowering at the younger boy who returned the gesture with just as much animosity and heat. "And you were more of a brat. At least this kid's quiet."

"_You_ should talk," Pyro snarled, lunging forward with the intent to give the man what he deserved until Cuan caught him by his arm, swinging him around and out of sight.

Their leader leveled the two with a cold, warning glare.

"This is Kallisto. He will serve as Syarnark's replacement," he informed them before turning around sharply to address the group. Setting aside his animosity towards Haakon, who had never taken to him ever since he joined, Pyro sat down on an upturned crate to listen.

"There is no need to question his aptitude. I have already done so. Sche, you will stay with him for the time being, and Matiy, you will work with Penka or Pyro, depending on the situation. Given Syarnark's absence, I will handle the technological aspect of our jobs."

Despite the tension lingering in the air, everyone unanimously nodded with a sharp, "Yes sir!"

Cuan released Pyro from his grip and stalked over to sit towards the middle of the loose circle assembled. Folding his hands together, he leaned forward pensively and closed his eyes for a moment.

"We will resume our activities when the Games end. Until then, you all will have limited contact with the rest of the group. Only stay with your partner and keep out of trouble. We don't want to attract any unwanted attention during this time."

Everyone except the newcomer lowered their heads for a brief moment, no doubt contemplating the underlying message behind the leader's words.

Whether or not their comrade would live - whether or not Syarnark would return - even for people like them it was something heavy and dark that they had to deal with. They couldn't just pretend like nothing had happened and resume life as normal.

"Five days after the Games end, meet up back here. Then we'll start."


	12. Insanity

**The Stars**

**Title: **Insanity

**Characters: **Pyro, Cuan, Syarnark, Penka, Kallisto, mentions of the others

**Word Count: **824

**Warnings:** The Games, talk about various crimes, character death, double standards

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Plot is abound! Also, the secret of Pyro's family kinda got out pretty quickly. This obviously happens after the Games, so you know that Syarnark wins (this may not be canon in _Song of the Dying!_ so don't think Syarnark wins in that fic because he might not).

* * *

**012: Insanity**

It was insane to dance with the devil and enjoy it. Pyro knew this well, perhaps better than anyone else.

What kind of son - a once loyal and loving son - would consort with his family's murderers and lose himself in their comradeship and commit crimes simply to please them?

The weight of his deeds, his innumerable sins, pressed against him relentlessly whether he was alone or laughing in the midst of their ranks. The realization that he had become the very person he despised sprung upon him at the most random of times, each as devastating as the last.

All the delusions he used to deceive himself could never hide the fact that he was now a thief, a murderer, and a criminal like the rest of them. Perhaps, he could argue, he had been forced to commit those crimes under the threat of death. Certainly, even in spite of his natural talent for such things (or so Cuan claimed), the man would have dispatched him without hesitation if he became a burden or betrayed them in anyway.

But if that was the case then he should have just let Cuan kill him so he could finally rest in peace without his family's memory tormenting him during every waking moment of his life.

Instead, he was here. Here - committing crimes to survive, simply for fun, or to keep some upstanding relationship with the District's Peacekeepers.

Sometimes he unforgivably forgot, even if for a moment, the reason why he had accepted Cuan's proposition all those years ago. As a small child he'd stared up at those cold, dark eyes set against a pale face and equally dark hair, unafraid because of the resolve pounding deep within his tiny chest.

Sometimes he forgot that this was the one man he was supposed to hate above all the others. Even the Capitol and its machinations were never meant to take precedence in deserving his hatred and rage, despite all that it had done to the Districts.

He wasn't supposed to cry in frustration when Syarnark inevitably won the Hunger Games after a dazzling bloodbath of a finale and returned home, never to speak to them again.

He wasn't supposed to collapse against the wall in grief when little Kallisto brought back news of Penka's inevitable death at the hands of those who had hired them.

And he certainly wasn't supposed to be the first to join Cuan in his resolve to someday wreak utter havoc and chaos on those who had done it.

Even that act alone was complete insanity. They may have been strong, may have had the guts and skills and smarts to outclass many, but in the end there was only a handful of them against a government. They weren't rebels with hearts of gold or even well-intentioned extremists.

They were simply criminals hellbent on a warpath of revenge, that was all.

None of them particularly cared about the Hunger Games, however oddly dissonant that had always seemed to Pyro. It wasn't as if any of them had been safe from the Reaping as children and teenagers.

The only thing they particularly hated about it was that it had stolen Syarnark from them - sure he was still alive, but none of them were stupid enough or suicidal enough to keep in contact with him. They watched from afar, from the corner of their eyes, and every now and again Pyro found a small delicate confectionary sitting on a pile of books he owned in one of Cuan's apartments.

He was certain that he was insane already. For someone like him, who had once angrily mouthed off playground bullies and shied away in horror from brutal deaths broadcasted onscreen, this life was unbelievably surreal.

Even so, sometimes he let himself smile and laugh with the others even with Syarnark (with his relentless smiles and painful optimism) and Penka (the closest thing to a mother most of them had) gone from their lives. Sometimes he cried like a child in front of Cuan, sometimes they got into arguments.

Sometimes he had no problem calling them all a dysfunctional family.

It wasn't that he ever forgot his true goal. He knew that sooner or later the day would come when he would have his revenge and abdicate himself of his family's ruthless pleas.

One day he would have to stop pretending and making excuses for himself. After they had their revenge - their self-serving revenge that had nothing to do with justice - he would have to wake up from this dream he found himself enraptured and entranced by.

One day he would kill Cuan Rian. Whatever occurred afterwards was none of his concern. The others would probably kill him in return, perhaps painfully, but Pyro knew that at that point he'd be done with fighting and surviving.

A painful death, after all, was only fair. He wouldn't fight or resist.

Because betrayal was the greatest crime.

* * *

Welcome to the world of double standards! This group is full of them. This is by far my favorite chapter of them all, actually.


	13. Misfortune

**The Stars**

**Title: **Misfortune

**Characters: **Syarnark, Pyro, Cuan, mentions of the others

**Word Count: **1,286

**Warnings:** Talk of child abandonment, mention of murder

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Thanks for the reviews! I might try writing about the other characters soon, not just these guys.

* * *

**013: Misfortune**

Misfortune had always followed them like a good friend from the old times. Since the day they were born the universe had already preordained that they were to be unlucky in life, forever coming up short of what they truly wanted by virtue of the parents they were born to and the place where they lived.

Syarnark had always felt fortunate though, like the universe was smiling down at him, perhaps playing a joke or prank every now and again. Unlike the boys he grew up playing with, he never grumbled about being abandoned in the junkyard or living in the orphanage.

With the junkyard as his playground he never grew bored - he learned how to live and survive without help from the useless adults in his life - and it was where he'd met Cuan and the rest.

It was Sche who he'd met first as a thin and malnourished nine year old boy, and her a gangly teenager complete a sour expression and a foul temper. He was unafraid of her threats to strangle him if he didn't be quiet and smiled even when she pulled a thin knife on him.

She had liked that smile, not because she was fond of kids or because his smile was anything special, but because she saw potential in him. The others called him unlucky for being singled out by "that group" who at that time had only been a small, growing force barely even acknowledged as anything more than a group of troublemakers.

Syarnark didn't think he was unlucky, though.

It was because of the life he'd led - the ruthless, cutthroat life filled with times of starvation and death threats and filth - that he'd been able to meet the people who he would later come to see as the closest thing to family he had.

None of them complained about their unfortunate lives like the kids in the orphanage had. All of them had been in the same or similar situations - brought up in the junkyard, working in the factories at young ages, and resorting to petty crime to survive.

Of course there were some people born into money and comfort, people who had families and who were born in different, more prosperous Districts or in the Capitol itself.

Thinking back, Syarnark didn't think he would trade that childhood for anything in the world. Those were the days when no one worried about the Hunger Games yet, days spent until sundown playing makeshift games in the junkyards and chasing each other until they were worn out. It was a time before they became bitter towards the world, before they learned fear and hatred.

One day Pyro asked Syarnark about all the rest. The blond was forever curious, never satisfied with yes or no answers. There was much he knew that he learned from Cuan and much that he still desired to know but no one would teach him.

"Why do you want to know?" Syarnark asked.

"Because," Pyro flushed, his lips turning down in a frown. "I just do. I don't know anything about you guys."

"Sure you do."

The shorter boy narrowed his eyes and stomped his foot on the dusty ground, kicking up grey clouds that drifted into the air. "No, I don't. I know that you never stop smiling and Cuan's creepy and comes and goes out of thin air. Faiz and Haakon hate me. Matiy is airheaded. Penka is one of the only sane ones in this whole group and Sche is just plain scary. But I don't really know any of you that well."

Syarnark shrugged and gave him a playful smile. "Isn't that all you need to know, then?"

"Don't be stupid," Pyro snapped. "Maybe I'm just curious. Tell me something about you and I'll tell you something about me. How's that sound?"

"Why do I need to know anything about you that I don't already know?" Syarnark saw the growing impatience on the boy's face and sighed, thinking better of it. If he played Pyro's little game then he would eventually leave, satisfied, and go bother Cuan for the rest. He rolled his eyes in jest and relented. "Alright, what d'you want to know?"

"I don't know…" Pyro trailed off. "About you, I guess. I grew up with my parents and my older sister. We lived in an apartment and my parents worked in the factory."

Syarnark shrugged. "That's easy. I don't know my parents. I guess they didn't want to raise a kid so they left me in the junkyard. The orphanage found me and I lived there until Cuan and Sche recruited me."

Pyro shifted uncomfortably. "People really do that?"

"Well yeah," Syarnark smiled, raising an eyebrow at the boy. He did look truly confused, but it was hard to believe that he was so naive. "As long as you don't register the kid you can leave it anywhere. The Capitol can't keep track of everything, you know. They just want you to think they do."

"Okay…well…you know that my parents died," Pyro said slowly, as if he was picking his words with great care. "They were killed. My sister, too. I found them when I came home from school one day; my sister was sick so she didn't go. They were definitely murdered."

"You know who did it?"

Pyro nibbled at his bottom lip. It was a rare habit for him, but Syarnark he wasn't as comfortable talking about his family's deaths as he acted. In fact, he had never heard the story straight from the boy's mouth. It was Cuan who had told them before the kid joined the group.

"No," he said at last. "It wasn't the Capitol, though. They always make it seem like an 'accident' when they want someone gone. And they'd complete the job; there was no reason to leave me alive."

Syarnark nodded thoughtfully. He put down the book he'd been trying to read before Pyro came by with his endless supply of questions.

"You're right, you know. About Cuan, that is. No one really knows anything about him. I think Penka and Haakon have known him the longest, but his childhood is basically an unknown. He never talks about it even if you ask."

"Well, I know _that_," Pyro grumbled. "I can't even keep track of how many times I've asked him."

Syarnark laughed lightly. "You tried? More than once, too?"

"Well, _yeah,_" Pyro insisted with a petulant frown. "I want to know who I'm working for, after all. But now I know perfectly well what kind of guy Cuan is: manipulative but charismatic, a smooth talker but _the_ most insufferable man I've ever known."

"You're also the only one who has the guts to tell him that to his face." Syarnark pointed to the doorway behind Pyro as he muffled his laughter with one hand, the other bracing him against the rickety chair he was sitting in.

The boy flushed, green eyes wide but already showing flickers of defiance as he turned to face the man in the doorway. A light, teasing smirk played at the corners of his lips as he stared the boy down.

"I do so value fearlessness in my subordinates."

"Why you - "

Syarnark's laughter subsided, but he still had a wide grin on his face as the two went at it.

Misfortune was their friend, a lifelong companion, but because it was they were able to smile and laugh freely without facing the world with bitter, rose tinted glasses.

Syarnark didn't believe in fate or destiny, didn't believe that he'd been born unlucky and unfortunate. He didn't think he would trade this for anything - for no amount of wealth or comfort or safety.


	14. Smile

**The Stars**

**Title: **Smile

**Characters: **Kallisto, Kallisto's family

**Word Count: **916

**Warnings:** Nothing really new here

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Yay, other characters! Kallisto's family is pretty expansive, so maybe I'll expand on them one day. Also, I'm experimenting with present tense since I usually stay away from it, as it's pretty awkward to read most of the time. For drabbles though, it works.

* * *

**014: Smile**

Kallisto only bothers to remember a precious few moments in his life. All else is inconsequential. Meetings, partings, disasters and miracles - all of those things are brief and transient, never to happen again no matter how one might wish otherwise.

There are a handful of those moments in time that Kallisto has for better or for worse, intentionally or not, kept close to him and remembered.

During the day he rarely ever finds himself thinking back to those times, for they are dangerous thoughts. The memories that would make him the least bit happy, the ones that made him recall what he had lost to time, were surely to ruin him.

The only thing he has to focus on now is improving himself. The others - each one older than him by a few years - had all been impressed by what he _could _do, but even that had been a sad attempt compared to them. He has no time for idle, unproductive thoughts.

Not even of the family he has left behind for this life.

Even if he wants to return to them it is impossible. They would never take him back, not after he directly disobeyed their orders and essentially ran away from home.

But there is something more important to Kallisto than earning his family's praise and respect. It is something that lays beyond the safety of their walls, something Kallisto knows he must search for because no one else will.

And that something lays at the foundation of those precious few memories Kallisto nearly discarded along with the rest of the childhood he was told had no worth or merit. So when that aggressive, persistent blond asks him about his family and whether or not he even remembers them, Kallisto can say nothing even if he wants to.

In running away he has discarded his family, but no one must know the real reason why Kallisto is willing to throw away a life of comfort and relative safety. He knows the risks involved in fraternizing with this group. They are criminals, always dancing on the edge of the law. One day the Capitol might decide that it no longer wants to turn a blind eye to their activities and one day they may no longer exist.

But better than anyone Kallisto knows what he must do. He works towards that goal, not knowing what will happen when he succeeds, where he will go from there, but he has no time to even consider the future.

It is nighttime now and Kallisto is working, the much taller form of the woman called Penka just across the narrow alleyway filled to the sidewalks with trash. It is vaguely uncomfortable to stand amongst the filth, but they continue to stand there patiently. The moon is a thin, hazy crescent in the smog filled sky and the dim, dying lights on the streets flicker.

It is the perfect cover for this type of job.

Kallisto has always been good at staying silent, much better than some of the other members of his family. Among them all he has been one of the most obedient and quiet, but never the perfect son - in their family perfection is placed on a high, high pedestal.

Some say that he inherited it from his father, a broad and rigid man of few words. Others say that he is quiet because he once spent so much time with his eldest brother, a silent foreboding presence who their neighbors have always said was "never quite right in the head". Kallisto knows his brother well, though. He knows that you never want Ilya to speak, because every word he says is biting and venomous.

Kallisto doesn't believe that he has inherited his silence from anyone. It is more of a learned behavior, but not even that. It comes from a childhood spent staring helplessly up at all these people he can never hope to surpass, all these people he calls family, who are so wonderfully strong that he can do nothing but stare in awe.

In that house there is certainly no more room for the quiet types. His mother is overbearing, a worrisome mother hen who frets over every little thing concerning her children. She never stops chattering even when Kleitos told her directly to shut up, but Kleitos has always been the favorite and she simply ignored his comments.

There is Myron who is always fussing with technology, terribly arrogant but brilliant at the same time, and Ilya who is imposing without saying a word. There is his little sister Alyona, the only girl and a simple, but cheerful child and Kleitos' favorite among them.

And then there is Kleitos himself, Kleitos who is the favorite child but the one Kallisto looks up to the most. It is Kleitos who shines so brightly in his vision that he can never forget him, even after a few years have passed since his brother vanished from their lives.

It is his brother's smile that he remembers the best of all his memories. That simple, encouraging smile of his that stunned Kallisto into silence each time he saw it is the sole reason he has put all this effort in up until now.

He is determined to see that smile again, no matter what he has to do. It is midnight now, and at last they can get started on their job.

Slipping out of the shadows, he and Penka turn into the quiet, darkened shop.


	15. Silence

**The Stars**

**Title: **Silence

**Characters: **Cuan, the rest of them

**Word Count: **1,346

**Warnings:** Possible sociopath warning, info. dump

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Cuan is hard to characterize, but I think this chapter was worth the headache trying to get into his mindset. Huge info dump at the end telling you what order everyone joined in and something about what they're like.

I'm not sure whether or not Cuan is a sociopath. He is certainly not a psychopath, but his psyche is kind of hard to understand. Hope this helps.

* * *

**015: Silence**

Cuan honored silence in his subordinates.

The sense to understand when to be quiet and when to speak was indeed a rare gift, as he discovered early in life. It could mean the difference between life and death, but it was also dignified - and Cuan was nothing if not dignified.

Even as a child he could vague remember thinking that all his peers were delightfully crude and unrefined. Their mouths jabbered without a single significant syllable emerging from the slew of words they spoke. It had been a matter of grave perplexity to him.

Perhaps in retrospect it bothered him so because no other event from his childhood stood out in his mind. Despite what people thought, even from members of his own group, Cuan had grown up a relatively normal child. He had lived in the orphanage, grew up playing in the trash heaps, and attended the Reaping in the cleanest shirt he could scrounge up.

In truth, Cuan could barely remember those days but knew exactly how they had occurred regardless. Most of his youth was spent learning more efficient techniques for survival and before he was ten years old, he had begun to read.

There were few books available in District 3. No one had time to read any and the pickings were slim due to censorship, but Cuan found a way to sate his curiosity by spending hours after school browsing the limited shelves there.

In that way, Cuan had been a quiet child. He was never loud or overbearing, but he wasn't strange or creepy either. He knew when to smile in public and how to hold a conversation.

But he never did understand how people could be so unrefined and graceless until he realized with striking clarity one day that there was just a _difference_ between them and that was that.

There was no reason why or how. Cuan was not born much differently from the others and yet there was this distinct gap between them. Eventually that was the one question he stopped searching for an answer to because there was no answer.

And so he sought other people who knew to honor silence like he did. It was never easy, but he saw it as a challenge. There was something that separated him from the rest of the lawless children who played and survived and lived in the junkyard.

And it wasn't until his last year of being in the Reaping that he began to realize just what _that_ was.

The answer had been staring him in the face for all these years.

Because unlike his peers, Cuan felt neither horror nor fear when he watched the Games. He didn't find amusement or perverse pleasure from watching people die, either. And he didn't think that the children who had died necessarily deserved it. In fact, he knew for a fact that they had done nothing to deserve such fates.

What really made him realize the truth however, was a single question proposed to him by someone he had grown up with.

"Aren't you afraid?" he'd asked Cuan. "Weren't you ever afraid it would happen to you?"

Cuan considered that question. He'd declined to answer it immediately and stayed up all night thinking about those words. By that point in time his childhood memories were sparse and hazy, though. It was difficult to recall what he'd really felt like on the day of his first Reaping.

What he knew at that moment though, was that he was not afraid of going into the Games and playing them or dying through other means. If he happened to die at the hands of another, he supposed that it was what some would just call "fate".

He also happened to find his answer that night.

Those people were part of a world that had little to do with him. As Penka would explain it, in a conversation Cuan was not supposed to be privy to he imagined, for a man like him there were only a few factions in his world.

There was "us" or the small group that was an intimate part of his world, the people he genuinely cared about to some emotional extent.

There were their clients and their targets, which comprised the professional part of his life.

And then there were the "others": everyone else who did not fall into the other two categories. They included citizens from District 3, people from the Capitol, and all the people in Panem.

Because the ones from that "other" group were unrelated to Cuan in any way, he didn't particularly care what happened to them. Whether they lived or died was of no concern to him.

And so, after his last Reaping Cuan set out to search for the people who would fit into that category of "us", the likeminded people who lived as he lived. He didn't do it out of a need for companionship, but perhaps to simply see if there were any others in this world who could value silence like him.

Penka was the first he found, a girl two years older than him who was well liked by many boys but who was completely blank faced and unamused with their advances.

It was that girl who would become one of the most loyal of his subordinates. She never questioned him but at the same time never followed him blindly. She didn't idolize him. He could always see the gears in her head churning as he spoke. If he needed a calm, intelligent opinion he could always count on her.

Haakon came after her. Unlike them though, the man was loud and sometimes violent. He was brash and arrogant, but strong - almost stronger than Cuan. Most of his talents fell into the category of brute strength and finesse, but he also had a good head on his shoulders and respected those who knew the hardships of battle.

Next was Sche, who had been a nurse but a very bad one. Her bedside manners were terrible and she hated whining children especially. While her skills were fine tuned and her hands frighteningly steady, she was cold and uncaring and the hospital was reluctant to hire her even as a normal nurse.

Sche was normally silent, but her words were biting and unforgiving. What Cuan had noticed were her instincts - never wrong, never specific, but just enough to save your skin.

Just after Sche came Faiz, just a year younger than Cuan but completely silent and emotionless. His specialty was killing in complete silence, leaving no evidence behind of his presence. When he killed it was nearly bloodless, always silent, and somewhat beautiful a sight to watch.

It was a while after Faiz that he and Sche spotted Syarnark and decided to take the child under their wing, as well. While some people like Sche never smiled, Syarnark was always smiling even after a shopkeeper had beat him senseless for stealing or when he was watching something grim like the Hunger Games.

It was a valuable skill. Cuan had liked that about the boy - how hard it was to tell whether he was hurting inside or simply joyful.

Matiy was unexpected, but Haakon was the one who discovered her overwhelming strength in an arm wrestling match. Her childlike personality and absentminded view of the world was prominent, but also like a child her simplistic mind processed straightforward information everyone else might overlook.

And in that way their little group had been formed.

Cuan wasn't expecting to add any others. He didn't know what he was doing asking Pyro to join them. The kid was nothing like the others - not even Syarnark, who was close to his age when he joined. He had a sense of morals and was loud about it. He was somewhat clumsy and easily angered.

But when he'd gazed up at Cuan he'd been silent - asking an innocent question but listening to the complex explanation with nothing but curiosity.

And Cuan for the second time in his life didn't quite understand what he felt and why.


	16. Questioning

**The Stars**

**Title: **Questioning

**Characters: **Pyro, Cuan, Penka

**Word Count: **1,346

**Warnings:** Censorship

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Quite self-explanatory.

* * *

**016: Questioning**

Pyro had always wondered as a child, never receiving a satisfactory answer from either his parents or the schoolteachers, whether or not those things called "stars" really existed. Unlike them, he was unwilling to forever live in ignorance and simply believe that they were real when in fact they might very well not be.

Most of the adults in his life, before the death of his family, were amused by his persistent questions. They found him cute and adorable for asking about such abstract concepts, but then reprimanded him for his curiosity and told him to go and play with the other kids.

Pyro could never accept that as the only answer. For years he never understood why everyone ignored his words, why it was such taboo to ask intelligent questions and expect another to answer him. The matter frustrated him and sometimes he'd throw tantrums during class when the teacher told him that he didn't "need to know that for the test".

It was only much later that he realized the importance - and sheer stupidity - of silence and ignorance.

Possessing an intelligent mind was a dangerous thing with the Capitol looming over them, controlling every aspect of their lives from birth to death. They preferred citizens who never questioned the way things were, citizens who were too dumb to realize that they indeed have some amount of collateral over the Capitol. Asking too many questions made you stand out - and the Capitol was very good at eliminating its enemies.

Even in light of the truth, Pyro was still not satisfied. So, he began to think. He thought to himself during the night, green eyes wide and unblinking as he picked apart every aspect of his life he had never thought to question before.

Why did they allow the Capitol to steal away their children and make them fight to the death? After fifty odd years they still allowed this to continue - when would they reach their breaking point?

Why did they bother attending school when all they would do was work in the factories when they grew up? Why bother learning basic math, science, history, language arts at all?

Some were easier to figure out the answers to than others. All it took was a bit of thought, but then there were the questions that he could never find the answers to on his own.

Did the stars really exist? There was no way for him to know or discover the truth. He could speculate all he wanted, but he would have never reached a solid answer if not for Cuan.

The insufferable man had endured each and every question he threw at him over the years. If he didn't have a satisfactory answer or was somewhat unsure, he could at least theorize with Pyro and together they would come up with a reasonable resolution. For once in his life Pyro had met someone who could challenge him intellectually, someone who understood his thirst for knowledge simply for the sake of knowledge.

There was only one question he had never been able to answer.

It was probably the most important one, too.

"How can you kill people who haven't done a thing to you? How can you murder them in cold blood?"

Cuan had never been able to give him a straight answer. At first, after a few moments of consideration he'd replied: "It is because they have nothing to do with me that I can kill them. They are merely strangers; I care not for what happens to them."

But when Pyro pressed him for more, when he asked why they as a group killed when they could just as easily steal and bribe, Cuan had fallen silent. He told Pyro that he did not particularly enjoy killing like Faiz did, but that he had no issue using it as an end to a means.

However, Cuan never gave Pyro a consistent answer when it came to that question. He asked the man the same thing every few months and the answer changed each time. It was a rare moment of indecision Pyro observed in the man who normally seemed so composed and perfectly calm.

Why had Cuan formed this group? If he did not care for "outsiders", what drove him to collect these particular people together in the first place? Pyro could never understand it.

Apparently, neither could Cuan.

There were few things that man was unsure about. Even though he stated himself that he could not be sure what people claimed about the stars was real, when he explained the facts to Pyro it had been so easy to believe him. Cuan just had that kind of voice - suave and persuasive. He could probably sweet talk his way into anything.

He probably didn't even need his hands or a weapon to kill someone. His words were his weapons, lethal and more reliable than a blade. The man reminded Pyro of a malevolent creature out of a myth or legend. With sweet honeyed words he could drive another into insanity.

Despite Cuan's many faults, Pyro never doubted for a moment that the man was anything but refined and educated. He had no idea how he managed to be vastly knowledgable about so many subjects when Pyro could never find the answers he wanted no matter how much he asked.

It seemed to be a secret Cuan was unwilling to let him in on. Instead, he would simply smile and go on to tell Pyro whatever it was he wished to know. Sometimes he would direct the boy to the sizable collection of old texts he kept in one of their many bases. The spines were cracked and some of the pages yellowed, ripped, or missing, but they were as valuable as gold.

They were old tomes from times long since come and gone in the history of the world. Some weren't even written in the same language as the one they currently spoke, but Cuan could even read some of those.

Pyro loved those books. He would pour over them when he had free time, discussing their contents with Cuan and Penka. They contained knowledge he thought would have been long lost to the Capitol's censorship, but somehow they remained. The treasures that were books only left him thirsting for more knowledge.

When he asked Cuan why he had chosen Pyro of all people, the man thought for a long moment.

"It was that look on your face that day," he said. "If you had been in a pitiful state, I might have never given it a second thought. But it was that intriguing, questioning look on your face that decided your fate."

In some ways, Pyro and Cuan really were not much different from each other.

* * *

Some of those are questions _I_ have had. In most of the "famous" novels about authoritative/dystopian states, the government either a) tries to repress speech and free thought to prevent rebellion (_1984_) or b) create a state ruled by pleasure or create a utopia (_Brave New World_ or _The Giver_). However, completely subjugating an entire country's worth of people is bound to someday cause the "peasants" to rebel, and rebel quite badly, especially if they are suffering.

Other things I've wondered: Why attend school? It makes it seem quite modern, but strange that they would have public education at all.


	17. Blood

**The Stars**

**Title: **Blood

**Characters: **Faiz, Kallisto, Cuan, mentions of the others

**Word Count: **1,030

**Warnings:** Talk of remorseless killing, torture, etc. and assassins

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely. In no way do I endorse Faiz's life philosophy.

**Notes:** More about both Faiz and Kallisto!

* * *

**017: Blood**

People always thought that Faiz would be the one covered in the blood of his victims.

Correction: before they died people always thought that Faiz would be covered in blood.

The people who knew him (and that was apparently a dwindling number at this point in his life) also knew better than to expect him to be up to his knees in blood. The people who didn't know him either didn't know _anything_ about him or would depart from this world before they could get a single thought across.

Shedding blood was, after all, quite unrefined. Faiz appreciated finesse and skill, not the disorganized flurry of murder and rage that was characteristic of the unexperienced.

It was simple enough to bash someone's skull in or stab him until he stopped moving.

On the other hand, it took a steady and careful hand honed by years of practice to slit a person's throat without them noticing until it was too late. It took skill to kill without shedding a single drop of blood, and without resorting to lackluster techniques such as drugs or strangulation.

And on the other hand, it took a great amount of skill to torture another person physically without losing them to blood loss or insanity.

Faiz did know how to do it all, naturally, but no matter how hard he implored the others, most of them just went for the quick and simple methods. As long as they left no trace evidence behind they were satisfied.

Cuan, of course, did understand Faiz's respect for the finer art of killing. Sometimes he discussed it with him over dinner or the rare times when they were all gathered together and Pyro was preoccupied with someone else.

Faiz, though, could never talk to Cuan at length. After all these years he would chance a guess and say that only Pyro and Penka had ever been able to hold conversations freely with the man. Everyone else kept their respectful distance.

It was normally Haakon who Faiz was partnered with, the loud and somewhat brutish man a bit of an eyesore, really. He was a good fighter, though, and that was what counted.

But he really, really seemed to like blood. Faiz would always walk straight out of the room when the guy returned, clothes splattered in blood and his own pristine.

When the group lost member, they immediately gained another. That was how it worked - people were as dispensable as trash. In a District like District 3 there was plenty of disparity and cutthroats, more than enough unique ones who would qualify for a position among them.

But it seemed that their leader was a bit pickier about such matters. Cuan always carefully thought about and selected the perfect candidate - although Faiz had his doubts about Pyro. The boy was honestly more of an eyesore than Haakon.

So when Cuan brought in a little brat who was barely even in puberty yet (kinda like Syarnark but so much like a girl that it was ridiculous), Faiz considered for a moment that age had addled the man's brain.

He never expected to take a liking to the kid.

Kallisto was quiet, like himself. He never spoke unless spoken to, and sometimes he simply ignored the world around him and retreated into his own mind. Unlike Pyro he followed orders obediently and never asked questions except for, "When?" and "Where?".

But above all, he was neat and clean like Faiz. Although they never spoke of their pasts, although they had no idea from what corner of the District Cuan had pulled him from, Faiz could discern a few details from his skills.

He was still a bit unpolished, but that would come with age and experience. At ten years old it just wasn't possible to match Faiz in skill or precision.

What he was able to tell about the boy was this much: he had to have been raised into such a lifestyle, and not simply having grown up in the junkyard like many of them had. The boy was too refined, too obedient, to have originated from such an ungainly place.

Really, Faiz had thought that family was a myth. Among those who specialized in killing for a living, executing the Capitol's enemies in the Districts for money or other such comforts, there was a popular story flying around about an entire family of professional killers. No one knew where they came from, if they were Capitol or not, and no one had ever seen them (or at least lived to tell the tale).

Most passed them off as mere fantasy. It was hard to believe the Capitol would endorse such a thing unless they were from the Capitol itself, and that was also impossible. Everyone knew what species those from the Capitol belonged in, and they were certainly not the cold killers of the Districts.

However, the longer Faiz thought about it, the more it made sense. Kallisto was skilled, far too skilled for someone his age. Faiz had been at that level when he was fifteen years old, and he was considered somewhat talented for his age.

The little boy looked plain, but that said nothing about where he came from. He moved delicately and with grace, as if executing an impeccable dance each time he walked. He didn't have the light, airy step that those who grew up in the junkyard had.

Even if the rumors were true, no one from their group was supposed to question another about his or her past. That only left the question of why the boy had left such a comfortable life behind for this.

He must have had everything - born fortunate, born lucky - and yet he would throw it all away and join a group of criminals who danced with death and were on the precarious balance of being eliminated and staying in the good graces of the Capitol.

Faiz kept his distance after his initial interest. They were perhaps _too_ alike, too quiet to interact, but he watched from afar when he could.

He watched, and he did not complain about how _messy _and _unrefined _everyone else was so much anymore.


	18. Rainbow

**The Stars**

**Title: **Rainbow

**Characters: **Faiz, Kallisto, Cuan, mentions of the others

**Word Count: **1,075

**Warnings:** Mentions killing

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Wow, the actual Games? Yup. Sorta. I couldn't really think of how rainbows would apply to this story...hope this works.

* * *

**018: Rainbow**

The Capitol was rainbow colored.

Syarnark came to this groundbreaking conclusion his first night there.

The buildings were sleet grey and the streets jet black, but beyond that there was little in terms of monotony of colors. Syarnark was used to the damp, gritty grey hues of District 3; this assault of color hurt his eyes.

It reminded him of the rainbow array of pixels on an advanced computer, one that flickered in a wild, shifting mass of color when he tampered with it instead of the black, white, and green screens on regular computers.

Every person from the Capitol was similarly dyed in reds, yellows, neon greens and blues, and every color in between. Their smiles were plastered on their faces - he wondered if it hurt to wear such painfully happy masks all the time - not that he was one to talk.

Their mentor had gruffly told him to "wipe that smirk off your face already" when they had disappeared from sight and were hidden within the metal walls of the train. But Syarnark could no more remove his smile from his face than he could, for instance, change the color of his eyes. It might be possible, but that would be more trouble than it was worth.

The people (though they looked more like statues than people but who was Syarnark to talk?) apparently liked that in a tribute, according to his mentor after conceding that Syarnark was just creepy like that all the time.

He understood. It did unsettle people after a while, but that was what caught Cuan's attention in the first place. It was the perfect rouse - no one could read his thoughts or intentions if he expressed none from the very beginning.

His District partner found him unnerving, though he paid her little attention not out of spite or pity, but simply because his mind was elsewhere. Him being Reaped was an unexpected development, certainly not beyond Cuan's expectations, but somewhat surprising nonetheless.

Even though he wouldn't have to worry about all that ever again, he still found himself running through plans in his head. Without him around Cuan would have to take up the slack in terms of technological tasks. Pyro was better suited to lookout or infiltration, given his aversion for blood and death. He'd be paired off with someone else, perhaps Matiy or Penka.

Cuan might find a replacement for him or he might simply wait until one came to him. That man was an enigma - his plans perfectly logical yet impossible to deduce.

He'd miss the carefree days of hanging with them all. It wasn't often that they all gathered together, but it was fun nonetheless.

Pyro would pick a fight with whoever could be provoked into one, Haakon antagonized him to no end, and Pyro would spend upwards of an hour simply glaring at Cuan for no reason at all. Matiy would make the stupidest comments that everyone forgave her for, and yet when they were all frazzled and out of control she made the most logical and effective conclusions out of them all.

When they killed on a job Pyro would still turn green and hate himself. Faiz would torment him or alternatively scold everyone else for a "messy kill". Sche would cross her arms and scoff or mutter about how Pyro and Cuan were _too_ cuddly sometimes.

Syarnark would miss them. He had only said goodbye to Pyro, who he often traveled with and who many might have thought was his friend. It was simply too dangerous to interact with any of the others. While they were all comrades, it was highly likely that no one in the District knew all the members of their group.

It was their policy. They were not to know each other in the "outside" world. There were a few pairs - Syarnark knew Matiy and Pyro. Pyro and Cuan were practically connected at the hip. Haakon and Sche lived in the same building, but no one except for Cuan even knew where Faiz slept.

Syarnark wouldn't go as far as to say that this entire thing felt like a dream - because he didn't really know enough about dreams to claim that - but he was oddly calm.

He'd expected himself to be nervous by now - in the Capitol and on their District's floor. The lavish quarters were simply a way to sate his curiosity as he poked around the variety of devices he had never imagined existed.

He didn't know what he was feeling. Perhaps a bit antsy to know what terrain they would be fighting in - because it certainly was to be something completely different from his home in District 3. He wasn't shifting through the various skills that might be useful in the arena, mostly because he had never really thought about those things before.

"What can you do?" asked one of their mentors.

Syarnark shrugged and smiled, "This and that."

"You can be a _little_ more specific, you know."

Because he was not going to tell anybody anything that might possibly connect him to everyone else back home. Their exploits were infamous, like a tale of the boogeyman except they were real. In District 3 they might have been feared but Syarnark knew that Capitol was much larger than them. Cuan knew that, too.

He'd die before he betrayed any of them - gladly die. What was his life compared to the survival of the whole group?

"I grew up in the orphanage," Syarnark offered. "So you know, that sort of stuff."

They weren't about to get anything more out of him. Anything he said might incriminate him.

He could wield a knife (_why how you worked in the factory right?_). He was comfortable in the dark (they often operated in the dark). He was a good pickpocket (but that was a crime and who would be stupid enough to admit to something like that?). Faiz had taught him how to kill without spilling blood, Cuan had taught him a wealth of knowledge, and Sche taught him to damn the world and only care about what was important.

Syarnark didn't know what he was feeling, only that for a brief moment before he went to sleep the second night he had spoken something softly to the room. It was so soft he barely heard himself say a thing - thought he might've been imagining it, even.

"I wish things could go back to the way they were."


	19. Gray

**The Stars**

**Title: **Gray

**Characters: **Cuan, Pyro

**Word Count: **799

**Warnings:** Cuan is weird.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Finally thought of something for "Gray". Took long enough.

* * *

**019: Gray**

There existed a mineral dark as night, nearly black, and formed from volcanic ashes to create a sharp blade precise enough to make fine surgical cuts. Cuan had never seen it except in old, washed out pictures in a book he owned about minerals and rocks and gems.

Its surface was pitch black, sleek, and surprisingly brittle. It shone, glinted.

But if "black" was truly not a color, as some speculated, then that dark stone could be nothing but the darkest shade of grey. Darker, or at least more beautiful, than charcoal or artificial black.

Cuan desired beautiful things. It was a well known fact that he sought out whatever beautiful objects he could find in their dismal District. His homes were littered with useless trinkets, decaying books, and whatever else suited him at the time.

He wanted to possess that stone - or, rather, it was a piece of glass. Like the stained glass vase he once owned, only to throw away when he grew bored of it.

He wanted to possess it because it was beautiful, because it originated from such a deadly source. The same volcano that spewed dense grey debris across the continent could also produce such a beautiful mineral.

They once called it "obsidian". Now no one would know its name.

Pyro had caught him staring at an old picture of it in a book. The boy glanced at him with clear green eyes - eyes he could have possessed at some point if he so wished - and asked him why he was concerned with a piece of rock.

"It's not a rock," he said simply, handing the book over to the boy.

Pyro huffed as he skimmed the entry. He then looked up at Cuan, staring him in the eyes, and deduced, "It's like your eyes. Black."

"There's no such thing as black eyes, or black glass," Cuan said patiently, tugging the book from his hands. It was old and tattered along the edges, but most of the pages within were intact. Apparently geology was not a popular subject to read about long ago. It had survived in some lonely corner of the world and Cuan had bought it off someone for a certain sum.

"It's as black as your soul."

"I didn't know you were so poetic."

Pyro snarled and turned away, his back hunched as he nibbled ferociously at a piece of bread. It was stale, even though they could afford better food. It was always better for people to assume less of you, so they dealt with the less than savory selection. Pyro never seemed to mind. In fact, he always struggled whenever Cuan or Syarnark wanted to treat themselves to something tastier.

"You are aware that there are many shades of color in this world?" Cuan said, getting up to sit next to the boy despite his protests. "There is an endless amount of colors, although some would argue that black is not among them. Still, the human eye can assume only a fraction of these colors. Even then, it is quite limited.

"Our eyes can be grey, brown, blue, and green. They can also be hazel - something in between, or even gold and red. But not black."

"People can have red eyes? Or gold, for that matter?" Pyro asked dubiously. Cuan could hear the curiosity on the tip of his tongue, and indulged the boy with a sly smile.

"It's called albinism. And yes, it is possible. Rare, but possible." Cuan paused, glancing out the grimy window. The sky above was darker than usual, which meant rain was on the way.

Pyro moved away, reaching for the blankets gathered at the foot of the couch. It was their makeshift bed half the time, given that the apartment only had one room and the cot in the corner had recently been devoted to holding clothes and books. The couch was closer to the heater, though, and body heat could only do so much when Pyro was so intent on kicking him in their sleep.

"Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to collect all the colors in the world. To see all those beautiful colors together."

Pyro faced him abruptly, staring at him like he'd grown two massive, fire breathing heads.

"You're not still talking about eyes, are you?"

"Oh, no. Of course not," Cuan said with deliberate slowness. Pyro stared at him long and hard before giving up, shivering briefly as he went about his business.

Cuan often stared at those eyes of his - those clear green eyes that might as well have been red and lit aflame for all the times they ignited in fury. It reminded him of another pair of eyes he'd once seen, a woman's dark, forested green ones, and he smiled faintly to himself.

* * *

Yes. Cuan is creepy. Yes. They do sleep with each other. Not in _that _way, mind you. Probably.


	20. Fortitude

**The Stars**

**Title: **Fortitude

**Characters: **Cuan, Pyro

**Word Count: **1,021

**Warnings:** Talk of premeditated murder.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** And the plot moves on! Pyro is probably in his twenties during this chapter.

* * *

**020: Fortitude **

Cuan had always said that it took extreme mental fortitude to contest with the Capitol. Long ago a member of a discreet underground resistance had approached him, seeking an alliance that Cuan politely declined, or so the man claimed. It was hard to imagine their enigmatic and and solitary leader receiving even a proposition to join another group, and for a righteous cause at that. No wonder Cuan had refused.

It was probably for the best, Pyro decided after giving the issue some thought. Cuan might have had many vital connections with people from the Capitol and the charisma and intelligence to utilize them with the utmost efficiency, but in the end he was an insufferable human being who relished in sowing chaos. Ever since Penka died and Syarnark left, everyone had noticed the sharp increase of such jobs.

Cuan embodied an old expression Pyro had once read in a book. If he were to join the resistance, then he would forever be the wolf that they could neither release nor keep hold of safely. In one moment Cuan might have an altruistic whim and in the next he could murder someone and walk away without a care in the world.

The only constant was their group. They were the one thing that Pyro knew Cuan valued, at least on some level. Cuan would give his life for this group, not necessarily because they had become as close as family or because they were friends. It was important that the whole remain intact, he'd told them countless times before, even if the individual had to be sacrificed.

Pyro had seen that cold, simplistic conviction shining out of his coal grey eyes. Cuan was a man who straddled the border between life and death. He played life like it was a game with treasures to be won. He didn't value any particular life over another, not even his own.

Sche had told him long ago that Cuan would sacrifice himself in a heartbeat if that meant the group would survive. He wouldn't do it needlessly, but he would never hesitate if it came down to that.

It was scary, in a way, completely frightening. Pyro had never known another who valued life so little.

That was why he knew it was for the best that Cuan never joined the resistance. He had no love of the Capitol, but he and it had found a mutual bond and relationship based on manipulation. They played a game with each other, a private game no one else had access to.

Cuan played this game even as they resolved to wreak utter havoc upon the ones who had caused Penka's death, and who had stolen Syarnark from them. He was a patient man. Pyro wouldn't he surprised if he waited decades before enacting their revenge.

In a way, they were operating parallel to the resistance, but Pyro knew no one in the group felt strongly for it. They happened to know plenty about it, given the frequent targets of their hits, but most of it was information they never divulged to the Capitol that hired them.

Cuan liked sowing the seeds and letting the fruits of their labor blossom on their own. If he could, Pyro knew he would bring ruin to both sides before he was satisfied.

Maybe he intended to do that even now. Occasionally Pyro would see him conversing with the Victors from their District, although never with Syarnark. He would leave with a satisfied smile or a soft smirk and refuse to speak of the conversation that had just taken place.

He spent an inordinate amount of time tampering with computers and other electronic devices, as well, pouring hours of study into a single book fresh from the Capitol. Pyro didn't want to know who he had to kill to get it.

The less Pyro knew, the better, he supposed. He had long since given up on fighting the man every step of the way like he used to, even though biting his tongue when they killed or stole or did anything of the sort never got easier. It was simple useless to resist, not when Pyro had no intention of doing anything about it.

And indeed, after all these years he found himself oddly complacent. At one time he had nursed the mental fortitude necessary to commit a murder, to kill Cuan Rian, the man responsible for the death of his parents. He had been wholly ready to give his very life to do it. He'd sword on their graves that he would extract revenge on their behalf.

But he had never managed to do it. At first he was weak, far too weak to lift a finger against Cuan. And when he had gotten close to the man, had worked his way into their ranks and grown strong enough to kill, he found that he had a ton of other excuses he could fall back upon.

He'd tried so many times to convince himself that killing Cuan would mean saving dozens. Pyro had already accepted that he would have to die to accomplish it, had already accepted the inevitability of death. He wasn't afraid of it. He still hated Cuan for murdering his parents and sister.

But he could never do it, even when he knew that he would succeed, even when there came a time when he _knew_ that Cuan wouldn't resist, would allow Pyro to kill him with a smile on his face.

Now Pyro no longer denied his affiliation with the rest. He had his moments when he'd scream and throw things at Cuan, times when he grew inexplicably violent. Their small apartment showed for it.

He would still play Cuan's game, constantly locked into battle with the other man. It was inevitable, but it was also why he remained alive. Cuan never kept the things that no longer amused him for long. He was a man who needed stimulation, much like Pyro himself, and boredom was their greatest enemy.

He would continue to play that game until the day came when he no longer had to.


	21. Vacation

**The Stars**

**Title: **Vacation

**Characters: **Syarnark

**Word Count: **1,021

**Warnings:** Talking about killing, apathetic talk

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Hunger Games and the inspiration for these characters comes from another series entirely.

**Notes:** Some Syarnark~ Nothing much to say.

* * *

**021: Vacation**

Once, Syarnark went on vacation with some of the other Victors to tour the most infamous arenas, mostly for propaganda a few weeks before the upcoming year's Games were to start. Having only ever experienced the arena of his Games, he had to admit that the prospect excited him just a little. Even if it was an artificial landscape, the arenas were incredibly realistic.

There were ones ensconced in mountains, layered in caves, or swamped with quicksand so thick that raised paths had to be built for visitors to walk around and fully enjoy the experience.

It was at times like those that Syarnark felt like a child again - until he realized that he had never, in fact, felt much like a child before. He couldn't remember a time when he gazed upon the world with wonder and awe; District 3, after all, was very black and white and grey.

The camera love his expressions, and he offered them a smile and a small wave, as they passed through the area that housed an empty Cornucopia. The structure gleamed like the one in his own games, only this one was out in the open without trees to obstruct the view. For today there were no other visitors around, only the Victors and their entourage of press and a few guides in this vast landscape.

One of the other Victors from his District, an older man, walked near him the entire time. Syarnark knew there was a question behind those eyes, knew very well what the man wanted to ask but could not for fear of being overheard. He had enough experience dealing with types like Cuan and Faiz to understand the underlying concern.

Are you an ally? Or are you an enemy?

He was once asked about Cuan and the others, assured that the Capitol's prying ears and eyes were not privy to the conversation. It was back in the Capitol, in a lavish hotel just for the Victors who visited the Capitol for various reasons.

At first he'd played dumb, innocent and ignorant.

"That day of your Reaping," the man pointed out, "I saw you speak with a boy. That boy is often seen with a man who I have spoken to before. He never gave me his name, but did give me reason enough to believe that he is the leader of that group. I want you to answer me truthfully."

Syarnark shrugged, but his eyes no longer held mirth in them. They were the hardened, glinting eyes of one who was ready to bolt or snap his jaws shut, either one.

"He's my friend," he admitted. "That other guy is his brother, but I never really spoke to him much."

"That's nonsense," the man replied hastily. "There is something going on in District 3. Is it a threat? Or is it not?"

"Depends on whose side you're on, really," Syarnark answered him patiently. Inside, his mind was churning and twisting itself around trying to seek the correct plan of action. Did he tell Cuan about this the next time he was in the District? It might be too risky, especially with people poking around about them.

"And whose side are you on?"

"No one's side. I'm simply a citizen, a citizen who was Reaped and happened to survive the Games," Syarnark said. He knew the man didn't believe him. He knew that his smiles and his optimism only fooled the masses of Capitol citizens.

There were times when he asked himself if he felt guilty for winning. If it had been Pyro who was there with him, even though that was impossible, then would the result have been the same regardless?

He thought about it plenty, but always came up with the same answer.

Of course he would fight to live. Even if he had to fight Pyro. But then he realized that it would depend on the circumstances. The one who would serve the most use to the group - that would be the one who should live. The other would have to die as a sacrifice to the welfare of the others.

If it was Pyro, Syarnark might feel bad. No, he was sure that if he had to kill that boy he would never forget what he had done.

But other people…?

He didn't feel bad. People died all the time. There were plenty of people alive, even with the decreased population as opposed to the old days.

Pyro had once asked Cuan how he could kill innocent people, or people who had never wronged them. Cuan responded that it was _because_ they were strangers that it was easy to kill them.

And he was right.

"Does that group work for the Capitol?"

"I won't tell," Syarnark promised with a smile and an obliging tilt of his head. "I won't tell anyone of what transpired here today. I'm sure you will not, as well."


End file.
